Here’s what I’m reading and a little bit of Revolution Investing thinking about each topic today.
On the Berkshire Hathaway Buyback – David Merkel with a very contrarian, almost bearish take on the first Berkshire (BRK-A) buyback. his usual incredibly insightful but pithy analysis, this time pointed at Buffett and the news that no bull can stop talking about. And yes, the fact that all my bullish friends feel relieved over that buy bugs me. Not that I’m making any moves because of that. Anyway, back to David: “To me this indicates that Buffett does not have any large places to deploy cash superior to the cost of capital of Berkshire Hathaway, which is pretty low, aside from investments with an inadequate margin of safety.”
Early Look: New Signs of Optimism, Or Just Window Dressing? – Another bearish article. I’ve always thought if someone would create a proprietary bullish-vs.bearish blog/news article gauge, they’d have a very valuable tool much like the “Cody-Hate-O-Meter” gauge that goes off whenever the market is at an extreme and I’m being contrarian. Anyway, Jordan’s looking to add to his short positions.
Don’t get carried away by upturn – And yet another bearish article. Hmm.
Is the SEC Finally Taking Serious Aim at the Ratings Agencies? – I’ve been thinking that these ratings agencies are probably good short candidates for a year or two and they probably still are, whether the SEC finally gets serious about enforcing the law against these guys. I wouldn’t hold my breath on anything serious developing from the ridiculously inept/corrupt SEC, but it would be gravy for the shorts. I think I’ll do some more homework on these ratings agencies like Moody’s (MCO) and S&P (MCH) this week.
Europe Tide Lifts Street Boat – Sigh. Europe’s like that scene in The Matrix where Neo is running through the lobby building in slow motion avoiding all those bullets. Somehow I don’t think Neo will avoid all the bullets in this version though. Not that it matters, as I noted in this column yesterday: What if the “worst-case scenario” is actually the best-case scenario? I mean, Will Apple AAPL sell fewer iPads in 2013 if Poland, Slovenia, Greece and Spain all leave the Euro and go back to using their own currencies?
The 100 Most Important Tech Stocks on the Planet – My latest eBook. You can get it three ways. First, you can sign up right now for my weekly investment newsletter, Revolution Investing, here on Marketwatch where I’m sending out a category a week to my subscribers for the next thirteen weeks so they can have the full book. Or you can visit http://100TechStocks.com and buy the book for $79. Or you can sign up at TradingwithCody.com where you get all my investment books for free. 100TechStocks.com and TradingwithCody.com are independent services and are not a part of MarketWatch.
And be sure to check out my Revolution Investing Newsletter published here on Marketwatch.
Cody Willard writes Revolution Investing for MarketWatch and posts the trades from his personal account at TradingWithCody.com. At time of publication, Cody was net long Apple.